View full sizeDoug Beghtel/The OregonianOtto is at its best when local ingredients are served simply, such as with this grilled Columbia River sturgeon with Dungeness crab succotash and fried cornmeal dumpling.

It's hard to walk by Otto on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard and not think about what was here before.

Ken's Place made a go of it, lasting seven years here before closing in 2007. But in the past two years, two ambitious restaurants -- Sel Gris and Fin -- have abruptly folded. Sel Gris, The Oregonian's 2008 Rising Star of the Year, was laid low by fire in late 2009 and never recovered. Fin, the lauded seafood-centric spot from current Wafu chef Trent Pierce, closed earlier this year amid reports the owner had sold the business.

When the dust settled, Michigan transplants Francis and Kim Stanton took over the location and opened Otto in May. The Stantons had visited Oregon several times and fallen in love with the state, its bountiful produce and even their location's narrow space, which they visited when Fin was still open.

When Otto reflects that love simply -- with a late-summer tomato salad or a perfectly grilled sturgeon -- things go well. As things get more complex, they get more confusing. One dish might come infused with Middle Eastern spices. The next swims in a Southeast Asian-style curry. With each dish, Otto becomes harder to understand.

Otto

Grade: B-

Cuisine and scene: Dishes from there and back again amid decor familiar to fans of Fin (with the noticeable addition of a taxidermied elk head) from a restaurant-running family imported from Detroit.

Take the savory blintz: sausage and potatoes wrapped in a golden, crisp, crepe-like pancake in a pool of demi-glace topped with a mound of fresh horseradish. The blintz, with its fragrant demi-glace, seems to get to something elemental about the place: an Old World-leaning restaurant serving meat, potatoes and brown sauce.

That thought is reaffirmed when the demi-glace reappears with a pork belly appetizer and twice more in the entree course -- on a hefty hunk of boneless short rib meat draped over roasted cauliflower and fried chick peas and again under tender grilled pork cheeks, cabbage, tomatoes and beet greens. These dishes are fine, though the recurring sauce can get tiresome, causing the flavors of each to run together. Still, the demi-glace isn't entirely unwelcome, even by its fourth appearance -- especially when sopped up with a slice of baguette from Little T American Baker -- and at least it gives you a sense of what makes Otto tick. Or so you think.

But before too long, you're boarding a plane with a round-the-world ticket. First stop, North Africa, where a sesame-spiced smear of aioli and quinoa tabbouleh complement juicy shrimp fritters. Next is Thailand, where jasmine rice and coconut milk are a bed for large prawns. These dishes are nicely executed (as a rule, Otto handles seafood well), but as your passport fills with stamps, you might wish the globe-trotting menu had taken a stay-cation.

Otto is at it's best when it's not trying to be something for everyone. The tomato salad starter, for example, is excellent, with a simple presentation of thickly sliced heirloom tomatoes drizzled with a little oil and salt. And the best entree is the grilled Columbia River sturgeon, with juicy meat sealed under cross-hatched grill marks and a side of sweet corn and crab succotash. (It comes with a pair of unnecessary fried cornmeal balls, but they don't detract from the fish.)

Desserts were unremarkable. A marionberry shortcake, topped high with fresh cream, could have been sweeter. A mushy berry gratin made me long for just berries, though an accompanying scoop of mango sorbet was very good.

Service at Otto goes the extra mile, and prices are reasonable, with cocktails and wine starting at $5, and a $25 three-course meal that showed up for Portland dining month in June and never left.

With a little more focus, allowing Oregon's bounty to shine through on its own merits, perhaps this space will prove more fortunate for Otto than it did for its predecessors.